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Every day it gets closer.
I’m not sure exactly what it is, but its presence is felt in any room I enter, any dream I land in, every conversation I have. It never leaves me, never will. I’m sure of it. Some days it’s right by my side. Occasionally it’ll even press its metaphorically cold, viscous skin against mine until I eventually push it off and lock myself away. But it’s always there.
I try giving a face to this thing that haunts me. Maybe then I’ll be able to reason with it. I imagine it as someone I know: family, friends, a face from a crowd that stuck with me. Giving it these familiar traits only makes it more aggressive though, and usually makes confronting it more of a challenge. The expressions never stick too. For a moment or two I see the face plastered around this clay manifestation of it I’ve conjured before it eventually melts off, turning into a leprous blob.
My next strategy is to make up my own interpretation of whatever it is. Maybe it’s not human, but rather a slime. An oozing, spreading slime that grows out of walls, seeps into the floor to then rise next to me at my most vulnerable. One night it’ll be watching from the closet, another one it'll be seated on a bookshelf above me. Or maybe it's a breeze, blowing me around and breathing down on the back of my neck every once in a while. It never goes too far. It can't let me forget about it. It knows I need it for some reason.
It’s more than a simple physical manifestation. It’s a force, as undeniable as gravity. Pushing me to say bad words, to move in strange ways in order to avoid it. Eventually it convinces me to do something awful, and I’ll be on the verge of complying, only to realise there is absolutely no reason for me to even listen to it to begin with. That’s precisely when it makes its move, inching closer and closer to me. Because when everything and everyone except it is repelled from me, all of a sudden it becomes way more fascinating. More understanding in a sense.
It’s almost a comfort having it around. It doesn’t complain, but it does ask. It asks a lot. Maybe I’m not so much afraid as I am annoyed by its countless questions. Questions to doubt myself and to reconsider my past choices are its favourites. Sometimes it’ll create a blend of the two; an amalgam of disdain and putrid self-disgust that consumes me whole for hours before spitting me out when I no longer feel like entertaining it.
Maybe I should listen to it more. It’s voice isn’t what I’d call soothing. I can only compare it to a dissonant orchestra too tired to play the right tune deciding to complain to their maestro instead. However, who else do I have at this point to hear? As I’ve said before, it’s never left me, no matter what. Perhaps that means that somehow it cares for me? A weird form of care, sure. I don’t think it has the best intentions at heart. And yet, what else is left? It burned my bridges for me, and who knows what it has done to lands I’d previously trekked. Burned them too probably.
I’ll never call it a friend. It’s worse than one, but it’s not an enemy either. An ill-advised advisor. Loyal, ruthless, and oddly disillusioned. One thing’s for sure.
Every day, it gets closer.